The Temptation to Quit

The Temptation to Quit

I dangle helplessly from the edge of a cliff, holding on by the tip of my pinkie finger. My feet scrape the side of the mountain – all efforts are futile attempts to pull myself up before falling into the ominous abyss gaping open beneath me. Fate taunts me from somewhere above, and I can see it laughing from the subtle lines and curves of the clouds. You silly buffoon, it says to me. You won’t win! How foolish of you to try. Will you ever learn?

But I digress.

There’s this nifty little quote that goes:

You know the feeling. The feeling where you’re about to lose your resolve to lose weight, tone up, get healthy – whatever – it’s slipping away from you a little at a time. But you don’t care. Your sweatpants and potato chips eagerly await you. Who’s Gym? And yes, Netflix, I am still watching (fill in the blank), thank you very much!

I know, I know. I’ve already done my posts for nearly falling off the wagon, losing sight of my goals, starting to regain my composure, blah, blah, blah. But the old adage is true: If you never quit, you never have to start over. There’s also this one and other similar variations:

Though I feel like I’m getting back into my routine – that I’ve found a foothold in the mountainside and I’m pulling myself back to solid ground – I know that every day people are struggling to stay strong. Some of my friends and other community members on the sites I use – MyFitnessPal and Fitbit – are trying desperately to not get discouraged by progress so slow they can’t even see it, or it has stalled entirely. But it is discouraging, and you can’t help but think, Why do I bother? This is a waste of time.

But it’s not a waste of time, and every day that I feel discouraged, or when other things in life have me so distracted that I lose track of what’s best for me, I remind myself that I don’t want to start over, and I don’t want to give up. I want to know what it’s like to really, truly succeed.